It’s a few years after the American Revolution, and life is busy and exciting in Boston, where your dad works at an inn. Sometimes you listen in when he tells your mother about things he’s heard there.
One day in 1786, you hear about the territory around the Ohio River, which is very far away. You learn a new word: frontier. “Frontier” means the wild land beyond cities and towns that have already been built. Someday, you’d like to see it.
In the 1600s, Europeans started exploring the Central Plains. They built forts and traded with Native Americans. Different countries claimed the area. Nations even fought wars over it. In 1783, most of the Central Plains was taken over by the United States, and the area became known as the Northwest Territory. The region included land north of the Ohio River, south of the Great Lakes, and east of the Mississippi River.
